Eventually, he lay down in the snow like it was a warm bed. A paw on my foot. I didn’t mind. I sat next to him, feeling his breath move in and out. It was odd, having company like this. It got me thinking. I wondered how long Jax and Wolf would stay, wondered how far north they’d go, wondered what life would be like running off into the wilderness with a dog and a stranger.
At school in Alaska, before the flu, Mrs. Burk kept us up-to-date on what was happening in the wars. Mrs. Burk was a large lady—fat, actually—but she was nice. I always felt a little bad when the other kids made fun of her.
The wars had been going on since we left Chicago, since I was twelve. With new technology, cities being bombed, different factions and groups taking power, peace treaties attempting and failing, it was hard to keep track of everything. And really, it didn’t matter anymore—the lines we drew for ourselves, the differences we created, the fear and hatred we felt simply because there were oceans and deserts and forests between us. The fear of the unknown. The fear that the other guy had a bigger stick. Once the flu hit, none of it mattered.
“Can anyone tell me who wrote the Treaty of Twelve Countries?” Mrs. Burk asked. I was in the ninth grade. A year after we left Chicago, a year after the wars started.
Chassie Emerson raised her hand. My friend Amanda and I hated her. She was a bitch who already had perfect boobs. “Australia.”
“Correct, and was it passed?”
“No,” she said.
“Chassie, let someone else answer. Why wasn’t it passed?”
Browning, a small kid named after a shotgun, raised his hand. “Because the US and China didn’t vote.”
“Good, and why not?”
“Because they were too busy trying to kill each other.”
“Chassie, please.”
When the flu reached the States, we were issued gloves. Every day after class, we’d remove the gloves, wash our hands in the sink just beneath the poster of an elephant with a caption, “Knowledge Is Power.” Then we’d head home. When things got really bad, we were given masks. When the stores closed down, Mrs. Burk handed out government-issued nutrition bars—brown, thick, tasted like grainy chalk. When fewer and fewer kids showed up for class, she started to teach us how to make animal traps. I already knew from Dad. When there were only three students left, she gave us books and told us to read them. Then, one day, Mrs. Burk wasn’t there, the principal wasn’t there, only a few teachers, a few students. Soon after, the school was just an empty building.
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